Tharr

Thanks to the high ratings, this new season got some extra cash I guess. A lot of things are of a higher quality, not always, but they do exist. Unfortunately, the sht is still there...

Visuals. It started with some good cinematography. A couple of different colour palettes, to give us different aspects of storytelling. Even the fight choreography got an upgrade. But then, it went back to meh. Weird camera spinning. Some of the VFX are terrible, mostly when its about scaling them correctly. You get a shot of the MC, some drones behind him, drones that look like (and later we do find out/see it) they have the length of a human torso, then the angle changes and they have a different size. Stuff like that. And no, its not nitpicking, it means the extra budget wasn't well-spent.
Audio. The sound design might be considered good. It has a few terrible choices, such as the track with the annoying beat that also plays at a higher volume so you must keep your fingers on it and keep adjusting it. But overall, good sound design, especially for the tense scenes. It really helps in getting you hooked.
The editing is kinda meh, all over the place. Sometimes good, sometimes it ends the scene too fast... The pacing is also meh. It started ok, but then.. Well, you know... Life happens or something. The world building is minimal but you don't really need it anyway. High production value. And it shows? Well, yes, sometimes it does.

Now the "good" stuff. For the most part, the cast was good. Even some nice chemistry. And the JP team was phenomenal in terms of acting. They really felt like professionals and that they were a team for the last maybe 10 years. I even loved their personalities. Oh, even the old JP gang that appears for just 2 min, in ep 5 I think, yep, even those felt like real people. And the charisma between them ofc. Back to the rest of them. Meh. A mix of meh and very good acting. Also, just a personal thing, but I hated the new young boy. The acting, his role, everything.
Moving on. Some decent character development, but also character assassination. Well played! While the first season had a silly story, at least there was some character work going for it. But now, it all went down the drain. The writer thought he was being cheeky, he tried some "omg" moments, but in fact, it was just sht writing, petty tricks meant to get a reaction from the viewer.
Nice segue, if I say so myself. The writing is horrible. Full of plot holes, plot contrivances, exposition dialogue, villain monologue, plot devices meant solely for artificial pay-offs, red herring, and so on and so on. Everything is meant to push the plot forward in the direction that the writer wills it, no matter if it makes sense or not, if a character would do such a thing or not. And after figuring out its "play", it was easy to guess how the events will unfold. Not everything, obviously. But when something weird was happening on screen, I could guess the general idea as to why, what it was intended to happen next.
A personal opinion: when the new season started, I kinda liked what was happening, I genuinely thought it got better. Then crazy and dumb sht happens and I realised that it wont. Then, the JP enter the stage and again I liked what I saw and I hoped for some things to happen, I started to write a scenario with them in mind. A good one I mean. But with each passing minute, when the stuff happening got dumb and dumber, and sh***ier, I knew then and there that it will be bad. But I had no idea HOW bad.

So, when the new season started, I had some ideas for the story, how it should go. Now that she knew, obviously, you need a time skip and training montage. Teaching her basic and superficial stuff while she has no idea? OK, then now she must learn everything she can, asap. Right? Well, I wont spoil it for you, you have to suff-- ahem, you'll have to watch and figure it out yourself, too. So, I hit play and hoped for the best. It started OK, or at least it was enjoyable. After the initial 20-30 min or so, it became the usual slop. The episode 2 happens, more nonsense. Then the 3rd one, even more nonsense. No, not even the JP team (that I loved) couldn't help me in enjoying it more. Yes the episode starts ok, but the ending is horrible. Many times have I yelled "shut the fk up, you dumb b**ch", no matter who it was that was talking. Because, surprise, the dialogue is sht. And the quality will never get better.
Then ep 4 happens. Cheap melodrama. When it happened, I knew what the next thing will be, Why it was there like that. Is it sad (maybe "sad" is too much)? Sure. And it took me by surprise. Because I thought they'd use it better, not just going for the cheap tricks. My bad, dunno why I was having such high opinions about them. But before that, the next scenes were decent, apart from fight choreography and decisions. Those were NOT moves of super mega, high efficient, OP soldiers, with their background. And THEN it gets to the dumb "plot-twist" that I knew it was coming. Ep 5 has sht and dumb dialogue, again. But it also had that 1-minute scene, with the old JP "grandpa" that had higher gravitas than all the supporting cast before. And he only has like 2-3 lines... Episode 6 was full of dumb-fk actions. All the characters became re****ed because the script needed them to be, so that the plot could happen. Starting with episode 7, I was just waiting for it to end. No matter what happened on screen, I couldn't care less. The drama: "Sad things happening... sad music... see? Its sad. Be sad". Me: "Fk off. Where's that damn playback speed settings?" So, yeah. The rest went by faster (because of me, not because the pacing got better). I already knew what the general plot lines will be, how the writer will make usage of them, so the last hour went by smoothly. Nothing special, everything sht.

And now you know. This story exists only because "it just so happened that...*insert random motive*", times 4. Coincidences do exist, do happen. But forcing 4-5 of them at the same time? Thats just lazy (or sht) writing. For example, lets say you work in a high-lvl bio research facility. And, while in a biosafety/hazmat suit, you open you visor to eat a chocolate candy bar and you drop the wrapper on the floor. That wrapper gets sucked into the door's intern mechanisms, that creates a short-circuit and a fire, that creates an error into a computer that, for some abstract (and dumb) reason was programmed to open all the doors. Into a building full with species, predatory species btw, that you experiment on. And just for the fun of it and to make it even more "whoa", lets make those animals something really really mean. Oh, and big. Yeah, lets make them.. dinosaurs! Ofc, such a movie doesn't exist. Just imagine doing a movie with such a sh***y idea, the reason for all of it to happen being a series of random coincidences. Yep, that will never happen ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

So, the technical aspects did got some upgrade, but overall, it got worse. While the first season had sht dialogue and the logic behind the action was lacking, you could put it all on her, saying she's a noob, only a few pro helpers etc. But now? You have a whole fking cast of mega op soldiers. On both sides, mind you. Every action, every thought should be full with high efficiency in mind. But nope. And the dialogue is soooooooo re***ded that will make you blink and look again. "I was living a normal life" (when in fact she did everything possible to not interact with anyone, do not create any relations. Only in the last 3 weeks she did something more). Or "He took the first step and shut down the website. He really wants a truce with us.... I do only whats best for the company. He did that of his own accord. He should hunt him down". So, he wants a ceasefire, so he took something to force you into it, he has the upper hand (the info) in the negotiations and he chose to make something self-damaging as a show of good faith. You do everything for the sake of the company, so your first thought is to hunt him down, when he could go public at any moment? What??? How the fk is that a logical thing? And why is no one asking her how is that making any sense in what she just said? And thats just about the logic behind their words/actions. There's also "evilman dialogue", while laughing. I'm not being cheeky. That person is telling outloud all the evil plans that happened or that will happen, while laughing maniacally. And not just once. I know its hard to believe, to imagine it... But it really is in this drama. And those are just some tiny examples of sht dialogue. It goes on and on and on and on.... Also, they have drones and robots that can withstand a blast, and super mega shields... Omg, I forgot about those shields... Those are the same as the suits in John Wick Universe, a bad plot device that will destroy any story-telling. If you have access to those, just send 1000 of them. Done. The whole drama will end in 5 minutes. *sigh* How could I forget about those? *double-sigh*

The absolute only good thing in this season was the JP team. And more specifically, the actress named Q in the drama (dunno her name), was phenomenal. Fantastic work. Its been a moment since I last saw such an amazing performance. When she's happy, funny, cheeky, sad, everything. Even her fight choreography was enjoyable even good. Now, if the story would've been better, I would've rewatched it just to see her acting again.
Anyway. It gets a rating of 3. Mostly in regards of the JP cast, and some visuals. And maybe 2-3 character development. The story, the plot, the dialogue, everything in regards to that was sht. Not recommended, no rewatching value. I don't know if it will get a new season, but it might. The ending for the last one made sense to have a new one, but for this, who knows. I'm sure it will be praised a lot, because people still think that "enjoyment" = "good media".... So, yeey us.... *sigh*

Have a lovely evening.